Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

George H Shaw

Mukund Sankaranarayan

Dale Alan Sather

Michael B Jones

Jai Srinivasan

William G Parry

Forrest Curtis Foltz

Jayachandran Raja

Terje Kristian Backman

Sean C McDowell

David S Bakin

Andy R Raffman

Bryan A Woodruff

Robin C Speed

Craig M Dowell

Adam B Glass

Robin Speed

Thomas J O'Rourke

James L Green

Resource management architectures implemented in computer systems to manage resources are described. In one embodiment, a general architecture includes a resource manager and multiple resource providers that support one or more resource consumers such as a system component or application. Each provider is associated with a resource and acts as the manager for the resource when interfacing with the resource manager. The resource manager arbitrates access to the resources provided by the resource providers on behalf of the consumers, e.g., using a priority-based policy. A resource consumer creates an 'activity' at the resource manager and builds one or more 'configurations' that describe various sets of preferred resources required to perform the activity. Each resource consumer can specify one or more configurations, which may be ranked, for each activity. This allows the resource consumers to be dynamically changed from one configuration to another as operating conditions change.

Resource manager architecture

Resource management architectures implemented in computer systems to manage resources are described. In one embodiment, a general architecture includes a resource manager and multiple resource providers that support one or more resource consumers such as a system component or application. Each provider is associated with a resource and acts as the manager for the resource when interfacing with the resource manager. The resource manager arbitrates access to the resources provided by the resource providers on behalf of the consumers. A policy manager sets various policies that are used by the resource manager to allocate resources. One policy is a priority-based policy that distinguishes among which applications and/or users have priority over others to use the resources. A resource consumer creates an 'activity' at the resource manager and builds one or more 'configurations' that describe various sets of preferred resources required to perform the activity. Each resource consumer can specify one or more configurations for each activity. If multiple configurations are specified, the resource consumer can rank them according to preference. This allows the resource consumers to be dynamically changed from one configuration to another as operating conditions change.

Resource management architectures implemented in computer systems to manage resources are described. In one embodiment, a general architecture includes a resource manager and multiple resource providers that support one or more resource consumers such as a system component or application. Each provider is associated with a resource and acts as the manager for the resource when interfacing with the resource manager. The resource manager arbitrates access to the resources provided by the resource providers on behalf of the consumers. A policy manager sets various policies that are used by the resource manager to allocate resources. One policy is a priority-based policy that distinguishes among which applications and/or users have priority over others to use the resources. A resource consumer creates an &ldquo;activity&rdquo; at the resource manager and builds one or more &ldquo;configurations&rdquo; that describe various sets of preferred resources required to perform the activity. Each resource consumer can specify one or more configurations for each activity. If multiple configurations are specified, the resource consumer can rank them according to preference. This allows the resource consumers to be dynamically changed from one configuration to another as operating conditions change.

A method, computer program product, and data structure is provided overcome excess code development associated with developing device drivers that are hierarchically related and provides standardization to driver developers by listing in the private area of a device object types of file objects, including specific IRP handlers associated therewith, that may be created under that device object to thereby provide a device object context. In like manner, each file object has listed in the private area types of other file objects, again including specific IRP handlers associated therewith, that may be created under that particular file object to thereby provide a file object context. The default handler for a driver object points to a multiplexing function that will process an incoming IRP based on the available context information to 'route' the IRP to the appropriate handler. Each file object has reference to a plurality of dispatch function references that are used by the IRP handlers to fulfill a particular request. A request to create a file object will also be validated to assure that only file objects of the appropriate type may be created in hierarchy, again according to the context information.

Method, computer program product, and data structure for validating

A method and computer program product for synchronizing processing between two or more data streams (e.g., video and sound input) and for rate matching between two different hardware clocks that may drift with respect to one another (e.g., an originating clock represented in a timestamped data stream versus a clock actually rendering the data) in a system of interconnected software drivers running in kernel mode. The present invention overcomes the coordination complexity and inaccuracies in the prior art by providing a clocking mechanism in a system wherein multiple drivers having input and output connection pin instances are chained together. The clocking mechanism synchronizes between data streams by providing a master clock on an input pin instance of a driver that is used to synchronize with other input pin instances on other drivers and 'slave' clocks. Synchronization is achieved through event notification or stream position queries so that corresponding frames of data in separate streams are rendered together (e.g., video frames with corresponding sound track). Rate matching is achieved through monitoring a physical clock progression in comparison with a series of data stream timestamps thereby allowing adjustments to match the different clock rates. A common physical clock (e.g., PC clock) can be used as a reference for a component to translate a particular clock time to a time shared by all components with a minimum of error.

Method and computer program product for synchronizing the processing of

A method is described for synchronously rendering digitized media streams. Each digitized media stream is made up of a sequence of media samples having media-specified timing. The described method includes calculating presentation times for media samples of different media streams based in part on the media-specified timing of the media samples and also based in part upon the desired synchronization of the different media streams relative to each other. The calculated presentation times indicate when the media samples should be rendered relative to a common clock reference. The method further includes attaching a media sample's calculated presentation time to the media sample, and then routing the media sample to a sink component for rendering. The sink component renders the respective media samples of the digitized media streams at the approximate presentation times of the samples relative to the common clock reference.

Multi-media synchronization

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Woodinville, WA, United States of America

George H Shaw